Second Devotion
by Left Eye Better
Summary: A Transformers Prime fic- After a tough battle on Earth, Ratchet attempts to settle his anxious spark, and gets a promise from Optimus to help.


Title/Prompt: Second Devotion

Writer: Left_eye_better

Rating: K+

Characters: Ratchet/Optimus, Bumblebee, ensemble

Summary: After a tough battle on Earth, Ratchet attempts to settle his anxious spark, and gets a promise from Optimus to help.

Warning: insinuation of prior relations, and future one also spoilers if you haven't seen it

Word Count: 1856

Continuity: Transformers Prime

Beta'd by: Unbeta'd

**Disclaimer**: _Transformers_ © Hasbro/Takara/whoever.

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Everyone was silent. The human younglings were gathered in a small group around Bumblebee. The yellow mech clicked softly as he noticed they'd fallen into the organics' version of recharge. It had been another long day for them all. It wasn't over for the medic by a long shot. He'd taken over command at least temporarily. Arcee was laid out on one repair table her right leg disconnected at the knee. She was stable. Two separate monitors chimed. One an even constant drone, the other a worrying patter speeding and slowing of its own accord. His hands clenched at the edge of the worktable in front of him. He looked over the battered form. Why Optimus insisted on battling Megatron one on one Ratchet would never understand. He had warned the blue and red mech that they would be lost without him. That without a Prime they would meet their end soon after him.

It had been too close this time and as much as he hated to admit the human younglings had helped. Without them opening the ground bridge and allowing the crippled and defeated Autobots a chance to retreat that last battle would have been the one that lost the war for Earth. Mentally he went over their current situation. Arcee was stable, Prime was repaired enough where his systems should have leveled, Bumblebee and Bulkhead managed to escape any major damage… and himself. He glanced to his arm, battle systems offline due to damage to main close range offensive weaponry. In other words… he'd been mobbed by legion troops again and this time a little smarter they concentrated their efforts in a hive-type mind and in a painful process clawed the blades from his forearms. He would have to wait.

"Optimus…" He knew what he wanted to say. He knew the threats he wants to cast at their leader. "You'd better pull through." The medic's hands were stained fluorescent with energon. Ratchet knew without having to look that their youngest member was watching him quietly. He'd met the temple guard turned courier turned warrior at the battle of Praxus and somehow the young mech had managed to stay with him while the majority of their kind had scattered to the stars. From his seated position on the floor yellow mech softly crooned his worry. The damage to his vocalizer one of the many imperfect fixes that plagued the medic. Ratchet straightened and looked over his shoulder. "He's fine, Bumblebee. Or he'd better be." His tone tried to carry a joking half threat. The white and burnt red mech shook a fist at the unconscious form of their leader before acting as though he was going about his business and switched to the table Arcee was laying flat on.

Bumblebee's optics narrow and he made an annoyed hiss-click, to state he'd been misunderstood. Raf stirred in his slumber and curled tighter against the scout's leg. Realizing how loud he'd been the younger mech attempted to minimize his volume. Again he crooned in a worried fashion at the medic, and tilted his helm.

Understanding him clearly this time Ratchet waved a hand to dismiss the concern. "I'm fine. Old, cranky, tired but fine." He looked down at Arcee and gently lifted her upper leg looking at the damaged connection. The medic tsked. There were good things about the femme's design and bad things. The good, she repaired easy enough; the bad, she broke easily enough. A whistle-click broke his attention. "I said I'm fine." A series of clipped clicks negated his self-assessment. Setting the limb down he looked over at the other mech. "Alright, Mr. I've-only-got-first-aid-training what's your diagnosis, cause you have so much experience telling if bots are injured."

The scout whistled and pointed over to the red and blue truckformer on the table. His hand went to his throat and pressed as if to soothe an ache. His voice grating and full of static sounded. "It hurts you when he's hurt." A tool suddenly was lobbed at the yellow mech clanging loudly off the wall to the right of his helm and dropping to the floor, starting the humans awake.

"I told you not to use your vocalizer!" Ratchet hissed. One of his hands went to his hip and the other gestured. "Oh look, the humans are up. Why don't you make sure they get home?"

Narrowed optics met Ratchet's. He was always quick to use the humans when it served his purpose, but quick to dismiss them when their usefulness was done. Miko stretched and complained about having to leave but the two boys both agreed that their mother's would probably start calling the cops with they didn't get home soon. Bumblebee tossed an angry trill in the medic's direction. Their discussion wasn't over. Ratchet again waved it off, and went back to his work as if to make it clear in his prospective the conversation was in fact over. The yellow mech transformed and swung his doors open to their young human allies. After the children were in the vehicle and his doors were battened the sports car sped off to show his displeasure causing his occupants to squeal in surprise.

Frowning Ratchet felt bad for his reaction to the scout's words. From the tip of one of his fingers flipped out a laser cutter. He cut the plating on the back of Arcee's leg in order to straighten the disconnected cabling, wires and lines. Ratchet glanced over to Prime's form, his audials picking up on the not too steady waver of the monitor. His shoulders sunk. Bumblebee was right. As he thought his hands worked without much guidance. This wasn't a new type of injury for the blue femme in the past Cliffjumper would have been on the berth next to her in a similar state of damage.

That was the past. The Pit with it! Cybertron was in their past too. A whole life lay behind him, a whole long life that if he was honest with himself, didn't turn out the way he'd planned. Shaking his helm although no one was present to witness the motion he continued to think as his hand worked reattaching the lower leg at the joint wire-by-wire, and line-by-line. He had first been devoted to aiding and assisting others. The war happened, and that didn't change. After the Praxian stalemate he'd met the mech that would not too long after that would be named Prime. Orion. Oh was that a long time ago. He again glanced over to Optimus and small knowing smile tugging at his mouth. Few had known their Prime as long as he had and even fewer had stood beside him half as long.

His second devotion was to Optimus. If one mech made it out of this pit-fangled mess their race had gotten into it would be that archivist from Iacon that lay on the worktable, he would be sure of it. The monitor connected to the Prime joined Arcee's in a steady but alternating beep and Ratchet cycled air. One more time he'd been close to losing him and one more time he'd dragged him back from the edge of the Well with a firm grip.

He finished up on Arcee's leg before going over and checking on Optimus's vitals. Upon arriving at the table and looking down at the Prime surprisingly his optics met the blue of the commander's optics. The dented battlemask retracted and Ratchet's paitent spoke. "I keep thinking one of these cycles I'm going to online only to have to face Primus and the original thirteen. I guess I should be more devote in thanking the Allspark I only keep onlining to you Old Friend."

"Or you could just skip praying to the Allspark and pray that I don't deactivate you one vorn for nearly causing me spark failure." Ratchet was still above him, the medic's hand checking strategic places on the larger build's frame. Optimus attempted to sit up, only to end up with a hand pressing his shoulder to the berth. "Ay-ay-ay-ay-aye Did I say you could move yet!"

The Prime allowed himself to lie back on the berth. "You know I do not mean to cause you such worry." He vented air as he said this.

"Well, ya do, congratulations. This is why they stuck you in archiving. You are fine with existing data but give you a variable and tell you to compute and you'll find a way to nearly kill yourself." Ratchet adjusted the monitor's leads and started working on sorting out the damages to the truckformer's motor relays seeing that the mech had found away to get run through with an energy weapon.

The blue and red mech reached out, his hand catching the medic's wrist. "And the reason you were sent to the medical science academy?" It was clearly meant to spur the other on.

"To train me to deal with stupid archivists turned Primes, though I do believe I have found their training to be woefully inadequate." His words held less fire than usual. Ratchet was just pleased that the other hadn't perished. There was the constant threat of deactivation especially of their Prime, and while he was up to the task of temporarily taking command, the sooner Prime had his mantle of authority back the better. Optimus's hand seemed to stay firm on his wrist. "Would you let go?" He tugged in a try to free himself. "I need to get this patched, so hopefully you can get around to trying to get yourself killed relatively soon."

"Ratchet… I must do what I have to. The consequences of inaction are far too great." After the words left his vocalizer the Prime left the smaller mech's hand free from his hold.

"Nothing you say is going to make me less aggravated." The medic groused. Free to go about his profession since he had long ago relieved the larger mech of pain, his hands delicately started the process of knitting the damaged area back to a whole. His own spark still fluttered anxiously from the worry the red and blue mech had caused him; it was only the vorns of practice that kept his hands steady.

A rumbling chuckle welled up from Optimus and with a confident smile the truckformer spoke. "I want you."

Ratchet's helm fell level with his shoulders. His engine revved at the insinuation of the words. It wasn't as though they did not know each other more intimately. It was something that was normally wasn't said and every time it was, it seemed to disarm the medic more efficiently than any warrior had ever managed. "Except that." He felt the cabling in his shoulders relax and he looked to the other mech, his sometimes lover. "Except that." He shook his helm and continued with the repairs. "Not right now Optimus, not right now." Looking at his hands buried in the mech's internals he realized that he had stopped his work.

"Not right now, but later." It was as good as a promise from the Autobot leader.

The medic nodded his consent. "Later."

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End file.
